NASSP To Promote Company's Practice SAT Tests

The National Association of Secondary School Principals is teaming
up with a leading test-preparation company to offer students practice
tools for the SAT, ACT, and Preliminary SAT exams.

The diagnostic tests, developed by Kaplan Educational Centers, are
designed to predict a student's score on the actual exam and pinpoint
the skills he or she needs to work on. The cost is $30 per exam.

Principals whose schools participate will receive a summary of the
test results, allowing them to gauge their students' academic strengths
and weaknesses, said Timothy Dyer, the executive director of the NASSP,
an organization based in Reston, Va., that represents more than 46,000
principals and vice principals.

"This is a great service for kids, and it gives principals a chance
to have another piece of information on how to guide the student on
what types of courses to take," Mr. Dyer said.

But while the partnership may provide test-takers with useful
information, it will also open the doors for Kaplan to sell its
products to students with school approval, some observers noted.
Students who take the diagnostic exams will come away with a packet of
coupons offering discounts on Kaplan test-preparation courses, books,
and software.

"This is big, big business," said Robert Schaeffer, the public
education director at the National Center for Fair & Open Testing,
or FairTest, a Cambridge, Mass.-based group that is a leading critic of
most standardized testing. "It gives them direct access to pitch their
products in public schools."

Detailed Analysis

Kaplan officials acknowledge that their partnership with the NASSP
will give the New York City-based company an earlier introduction into
secondary schools.

"We've lowered the bar in the marketplace, opened it up to a larger
number of individuals," said Joe Scherer, the executive director of
Kaplan Learning Services' K-12 partnerships. "This way we're not
waiting for the students to come to us during their senior year."

But Mr. Scherer added that Kaplan's diagnostic tests will benefit
students and principals.

The NASSP has offered its own practice test materials for the SAT
and the ACT--the two most widely used college-entrance exams--as a
service to principals for years. But those materials don't include the
type of analysis that Kaplan can provide, Mr. Dyer of the principals'
group said.

"This analysis will say, 'You failed to master quadratic equations,
this is what you need to study,'" Mr. Scherer added. "It does much more
than just report the score."

And while an SAT-preparation course at a Kaplan center can cost
close to $700, the diagnostic tests are priced low enough that they may
be a service to students who might otherwise take the test cold, Mr.
Scherer said.

This is just one of a number of business partnerships the NASSP has
entered into over the years, Mr. Dyer noted. Such arrangements support
the organization's basic philosophy that "education is not just a
school matter, it's a community matter," he said.

Individual principals will decide when and where to administer the
diagnostic tests.

The NASSP will promote the partnership with Kaplan by detailing the
arrangement in internal publications. Kaplan will also be present at
the organization's annual convention in San Diego in
February.

State Tests Eyed

In addition to its practice tests for college-entrance exams, Kaplan
is working on similar diagnostic tools that could be customized on a
state-by-state basis for various tests of basic skills at different
grade levels.

Schools or school districts might choose to pay for such practice
tests if they're concerned about how their students will fare on their
states' standardized exams, Mr. Scherer said.

Though Kaplan's plans for such tests are still in the works, they
may be ready next spring, he added.

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